Adventures of a farmer's daughter in Hawaii

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Dishonesty is Unsustainable

The more I pay attention to what the anti-GMO activists do and say, I’ve come to realize that after 3 years of their charades, some people are getting a clue of the sham that they are pulling. When the lady who accused my dad of poisoning her has the guts to come and apologize to him and even give him a hug, it tells me that there is hope. She could have easily forgotten it and walked by the fields but she didn’t. She came and did the right thing.

As I was listening to Ashley Lukens, the director of the Center for Food Safety, talk on Thursday, I heard some very interesting claims being made.

“I also wanted to thank my friend, and fellow academic, Robert Perkinson and the American studies department, for creating this space here at UH for us to bring. I just want to thank Robert. Robert has helped to bring a lot of great thinkers to Hawaii in the 10 years I’ve lived here. I’ve had the opportunity to meet with activists from around the world who work with a variety of issues and it’s because Robert has this incredible willingness to navigate the complex hierarchy of UH Manoa like nobody I have ever seen. It takes about 72 pieces paper all signed off with the perfect signature to reserve a room and do it every time so I really appreciate it. Anyone who is a professor here at UH, this is the unpaid labor of being a professor and I really appreciate you. And also the Chancellor’s Thought Leader Series helped us put this on and the UH Office of Sustainability.”

She makes the claim that the Chancellor’s office helped with this event, which caught me by surprise. She also has it in her citation-free handouts that UH is a partner of the Center for Food Safety.

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Just like the name of their group, the Center for Food Safety, they use deception to get the public to believe their legitimacy. The name alone makes make people think that they really are a food safety group and yet no one ever questions the fact that there’s nothing on the hepatitis A outbreak. Nor do they ever post any food recalls either to inform the public. By putting the University of Hawaii’s name on their “partners,” the unsuspecting person will think that if the university supports it, then they must be genuine.

Being the skeptical person I am, I decided to contact the Chancellor’s office directly and find out the truth. Turns out, Ashley Lukens wasn’t totally truthful that night to the large audience in attendance. Here’s the email I received back from Dr. Clifton Tanabe, the executive assistant to the Chancellor.

“I’m the executive assistant to the Manoa Chancellor. David Lassner asked me to look into the Center for Food Safety event held on Sept. 14 at the UHM Architecture Auditorium. I have learned that this event was not endorsed nor sponsored by the Chancellor’s Office. Robert Perkinson (who, I understand, may have helped with arrangements for the auditorium) does organize a different speaker series for the Chancellor’s Office, but this event was not at all part of that series.”

Once again, Ashley must think that people don’t pay attention to what their group says. Yes, your die hard GMO free activists believe and worship what you say but everyone else doesn’t fall for your shtick at all. She’s an expert of political manipulation and it’s getting to be pretty easy to pull her “information” apart because it’s fact-less.

The emotional arguments made by the Center for Food Safety can go all over the place. They have no bar in what they will claim or say, much like what the Food Babe does. Therein lies the huge difference between the anti-GMO folks and the rational, logic based, science supporters. We’re tied to facts that can’t go all over the place. We are bound to what the evidence shows and Ashley and friends will do and say anything to get their way.

That reckless way of behaving and acting can only last so long before people get tired of it. Like the Babes Against Biotech’s Nomi Carmona giving up the 300 domain names she registered of people in the ag community, these kinds of actions can only last so long. These folks will learn the lesson that you can only fool people for so long before they realize what has been done. Meanwhile, the farmers are still producing crops and the GMO free activists are still yelling and giving the bird with no farm or actual product produced from it, other than their historical tantrums documented online. The ugly mark they made in the world and the dishonest tactics they launched will be sustained in history forever.